My Ideal Expansion

[AyinDygra]

Walk of Echoes
Walk of Echoes is in need of a major overhaul of its reward structure and monster behavior if SE wants it to remain a casual method to obtain the lesser-empyrean weapons without large groups to take on the challenges of Abyssea bosses and the time involved in collecting the key items to pop said bosses.

The WoE enemies must not have the special hate systems and linking potential that makes soloing nearly impossible in most battlefields of the event. Most of the rewards should be obtained from killing the non-boss enemies. Killing the bosses would still be required to progress with opening new battlefields (but a party of 6 random people on jobs that can normally solo the non-boss monsters in the battlefield should be able to defeat the bosses. For example, this means no spamming of highly damaging AoE attacks.)

It may be best to include a currency similar to Einherjar's Ampoules of Therion Ichor (Battle Arena Points) to reward participants from each kill based on their performance, similar to Bastion, to spend on items purchased from an NPC, which would remove much of the controversy surrounding the "drops" issue. People would attend on the jobs they currently bring to Campaign, fully expecting to be solo. Battle Arena Points can be spent to purchase "Coins" so progress in the event does not rely on clearing all enemies and bosses from the zone and receiving a chest at the end.

Currently, because you need to fully clear the zone to get anything, the event rewards only organized groups. Instead of being treated as a casual event to go to like Campaign to grab one of the "lesser-Empyreans", you have to treat it like a linkshell event, gathering enough people to actually "win" a zone to get anything worthwhile.

[AyinDygra]

Campaign
Some Simulacrum Arena games will make use of the Campaign battle system with enhanced objectives beyond just killing beastmen and defending/destroying fortifications. I also suggest these changes/additions to Campaign:

* Add "Scout Report" that acts like a complete-zone-wide-ranged Widescan that only shows Campaign-related NPCs, locations & monsters - all participants in Campaign Battles will have access to this.

* Defending Fortifications should spawn defenders when they're attacked. In fact, there should be a garrison within the towers that can shoot arrows and cannons. Some non-tower fortifications may call for help to draw defenders to them.

* Let lower level players use the war machines on the battlefield, like the massive catapults and ballistae that are currently only props/decorations, to assist, rather than engaging enemies directly.

* Add new Battlefield Missions that low level players can accomplish, such as replenishing ammunition supplies, (and then have the above-mentioned prop weapons actually do something in the battles) - these are not to be confused with Campaign Operations which are initiated in home towns. These are new missions generated on the battlefield by NPCs in the field.

* When tower-type fortifications are on the battlefield, allow the player defenders enter the towers to rest, protected from all Area of Effect attacks. (They may also gain access to the tower's weaponry) Access to the towers should be possible from a distance that allows players to enter without being interrupted by the very area of effect attacks that they are trying to avoid. ("Exits from" and "entrances of" the towers may be a distance away, like a secret escape tunnel, instead of increasing the range of interaction.)

* Planned Waves
This goes with story scripting for certain battlefield events using the Campaign system. Instead of having a random army invade at certain time intervals, these events would have a set group of enemies advancing in waves that are initiated either by the passage of time, or triggers during the battles (such as the death of the last enemy in the previous wave.) Some waves may be destroyed during cut scenes (like when the TaruTarus blast the enemy army with Comet/Meteor in the opening movie.)

New Objectives:
Currently, the only player objectives are "Destroy Fortifications" and "Defeat Enemy Forces."

I am not counting the limited number of Campaign operations possible to carry out each week, which effectively makes them a non-issue in battles once you have 0 ops left to carry out. This system suffers from the same issue plaguing Bastion: people who WANT to carry out the special objectives can only do them a limited number of times... and the majority of players who do NOT want to do them squander their ability to impact the battles. I guess some programmer said, "Hey, what if every player on the server decided to do these operations non-stop and totally ruined the game balance?" ... that's clearly not an issue. Ease up on the per-player restrictions and these objectives might become part of the game!

Delay Enemy Advance
This objective would be part of special battles where time is an issue. In order to keep enemies away from a certain location or NPC, there may be barricades that the enemies have to break through. Player actions may repair the barricades or keep the enemies from attacking those barricades. Traps on the battlefield could be used as well, such as tipping over vats of boiling tar onto the unsuspecting enemies below that inflicts a great amount of damage and then creates a terrain that adds "Gravity", "Burn" and "Slow" (plus a weakness to fire magic and fire elemental attacks) to the enemies when they pass through it. The entire goal of this objective is to simply stay alive for the duration of the event. No specific NPC has to be protected on the battlefield.

Protect VIP
Certain NPCs on the battlefield may be considered Very Important People (VIPs) that need to be protected until they can reach a certain location and escape, or simply stay alive until at certain time limit is reached. The enemy AI should not be 100% focused on killing ONLY that one NPC. The NPC we're protecting is not necessarily the target the enemies are after. It's just the player's goal to keep them alive. (Some may be crazy generals who rush headlong into battle, but most of these will be people trying to escape, or special fortifications or battlefield props relating to a story.)

Eliminate Target
There may be a single enemy in the defending or attacking forces that needs to be eliminated to win. This could be an enemy general or unit like a Behemoth or a specific fortification or enemy Siege Engine.

[AyinDygra]

~*~*~*~ Arena Rewards ~*~*~*~

* Various "Points"
Battle Arena Points (new), Experience, Gil, Conquest Points, Imperial Sanction Points, Allied Notes, Jettons, Chocobucks, Ballista Points, Walk of Echoes Coins

* Titles
Some people love their titles.

* Achievements
I don't personally play on the Xbox, but I'm sure this is the sort of thing competitive players would want.

* Mog House Furnishings
Trophies, Plaques, Thrones?, Weapon Displays, Armor Displays

* PvP Latent Effect Evoliths and Gear Sets
The appearance of the Aptant gear sets just scream "fantasy team sports" to me. (as well as their customizability)

* Appearance Gear
Gear without combat stats, possibly with fun special features like swimsuits/yukatas/formalwear with teleports/mini-game enhancements. This would include items similar to FanFest Gear - Moogle gear, Chocobo Wand... but different in name/appearance to keep the FanFest gear unique.

* Costume Gear
Chocobo Beret & Goblin Belt types of items (not necessarily those currently available)


~*~ Battle Arena Shop ~*~
All versions of "points", including "Battle Arena Points" can be spent on things in this special shop, so people can pick and chose which games they want to participate in, if any, to buy things from this shop. It will be similar to the shop in FF7's Golden Saucer. Gear in this shop can be used outside of the Arena games. (Conquest Points, Imperial Sanction Points, and other forms of currency can also be used in place of, or perhaps be exchanged for, Battle Arena Points.)

Conqueror Gear - New Ballista/Brenner Aptant sets (Some sets will have choosable "Augments", like the 3 add-on rewards with stats only during PvP games, some will have many Neo-evolith slots and some sets will just be for looks and have no evolith slots, to be used in creating unique "Uniforms".)

Neo-evoliths - Evoliths without the massive restrictions of "tiny bonus only against monster family X" or "During a full eclipse on Firesday, while under the effect of terror." There are other threads (I may add links) on how to make Evoliths useful, so I won't go into that here. Just don't think I mean the current evolith system as it stands, because that's just crazy. (Some Evoliths may have the restriction of "Must be participating in a PvP contest" as mentioned above)

Chocobo Knight Gear - Stats aimed at modifying chocobos in Chocobo Derby games - and maybe remove (not just extend) the chocobo ride time duration limits outside the games.

Wild Rider Gear - Stats aimed at enhancing non-Chocobo mounts in Chocobo Derby games - and maybe call new mounts outside of Chocobo Derby.

Teleportation items - Nation Stables Collar/Medal/Scarf, Crag Rings, Teleport Earrings, Gate Glyphs

"New Merits" - This could be one method to obtain new weaponskills (possibly gain a special currency by fighting the Crystal War generals who use special weaponskills to buy only the weaponskill they use), new job traits and new job abilities. Not only gear can be sold in the shop... this would be associated with the new merit system to break through the level 99 limits, since the Simulacrum is in a very similar situation to that which players who have reached level 99 in multiple jobs are in, having mastered all there is to master. The hatred some people have toward mini-games, and the fact that not everyone will own this expansion, would require this to simply be an alternate way to accomplish the same goals as those without the expansion or who don't want to participate in mini-games. (for instance, I'd never participate in Ballista/Brenner/Diorama, even if it produced the ultimate weapons in the game, but I'd participate in other parts of the arena every single day, all day, if given the chance.)

[AyinDygra]

And that about does it for now!

I'm sure I'll find something to add here and there... and I have to go back through and add a few hyperlinks.

[Mirage]

Holy shit, how many do you expect to read through all that?

[SpankWustler]

What?! I thought all of these posts where from different people!

I...but...if...how...than...when...why...can...but...

[Retsujo]

You had me at "expansion."

[Teraniku]

Me, being a story person, does not like the story behind it, just because it's another alternate dimension. Love the wealth of ideas presented here though. Unsure of what could be implemented into the game given current limitations.

[AyinDygra]

Many people probably skipped down to the end, unable to keep things together due to how many different posts each topic had to be split into, and I couldn't fit this in the first post (10,000 character limit GAH!)

Anyway, here's an index to help find things easier.
Index:
Story pt1 / Story pt2 / Characters, Plotpoints & Themes / Quest notes & Boss notes
New Zones / New Enemies, New Beastmen, New Status effects
New Endgame Event: Light Warriors (monsters/bosses/rewards)
Crystal Shards system & examples of shards 1, 2, 3, 4
New Endgame Event: Monster Arena
New Endgame Event: Tavnazia
Personal Airships
Triple Triad
6 New Jobs (5 full job concept documents, but I didn't make a full post for Geomancer yet, and a seventh one is an old job given a new twist)
Chemist (Concept / JA pt1 / JA pt2, Traits, Merits & gear / Ingredients / Mix List pt1, pt2)
Engineer (Concept / JA pt1 / JA pt2 / JA pt3 / JA pt4 / Traits, Merits & gear)
Judgemaster (Concept / Job Abilities / Judgments / Penalties / Approvals / Prohibitions / Traits, Merits & gear)
Mimic (Concept / Job Abilities / Traits, Merits & gear)
Jikuu Sage (Concept / Spells pt1 / Spells pt2 / Job Abilities / Traits, Merits, gear, joke)
Soul Plate Shop / Automaton AI Cards
Fat Chocobo Storage, New Weapon Varieties, "Ranged Combat Specialties"
New Summons / Atomos / Phoenix / Siren
Simulacrum Arena
Ballista, Brenner, Diorama, Tournaments and adjustments & PVE Endurance Rounds
Pankration / Epic Battles / Dimensional Cross-over battles, Special battlefields, Chocobo Derby
Walk of Echoes / Campaign
Arena Rewards

[AyinDygra]

Me, being a story person, does not like the story behind it, just because it's another alternate dimension. Love the wealth of ideas presented here though. Unsure of what could be implemented into the game given current limitations.

Actually, it's not yet another dimension... it's making use of the dimension we already have access to, but has very little actual story behind it (The Threshold)

Edit: I updated the two main story posts with "Summaries" at the end to spell things out very clearly.